The ideal dental treatment room is constructed and equipped to provide essential dental services as effectively and efficiently as possible. With this goal in mind, various prior art dental carts have been designed to provide a mobile work surface, with cabinetry for access to dental instruments and supplies. See, for example Slouka, U.S. Pat. No. 3,597,033; Tocchini, U.S. Pat. No. 3,229,368; and Elliot, U.S. Design Pat. No. 302,585. In addition, there exist more expansive dental work stations and treatment room cabinet structures that also attempt to achieve minimum doctor time and motion and maximum efficiency. See Wolf el al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,013,328; and Fuchs, U.S. Pat. No. 4,934,933.
Unfortunately, the prior art emphasis on efficiency can often conflict with the need to ensure safe hygiene in the dental treatment room. Prior art dental carts achieve their objective in part by allowing for positioning of the dental workspace in close proximity to the patient. However, the immediacy of the dental workspace and associated instruments to the patient necessarily increases the risk of contamination during a procedure, thereby endangering both the dental worker and subsequent patients. This problem is compounded in the prior art designs, since the cabinetry and bracket structures utilized in these devices are difficult to safely and rapidly disinfect after each patient visit.
Concern over dental hygiene has become particularly acute following recognition of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Infectious human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, can persist in a liquid or dried state for prolonged periods of time, possibly even at elevated temperatures. Resnick et al., JAMA 255:1887 (1986). Accordingly, a thorough and effective disinfection of the dental workspace following an invasive procedure is an essential precaution to prevent the transmission of this potentially deadly virus. The corners and crevices created by prior art designs complicate this procedure. In view of the ever-present need for hygiene and the rapidly growing concern over the transmission of certain viral and bacterial agents, what is needed is a dental delivery platform that can be quickly and completely disinfected.
The rapid increase in technology and instrumentation in the dental treatment room in recent years has also rendered many of the prior art designs obsolete in view of the efficiency goal as well. In order to be effective a dental delivery platform must provide easy access to a growing variety of instruments, resins, implants and various consumables, as well as X-ray and computer equipment. Moreover, equally important to ease of access is ease of disposal for sharp objects and medical waste generated during a dental procedure. The prior art designs considered herein fail to fully satisfy both of these requirements. What is needed is a dental delivery platform with effective means for viewing and accessing the various dental instruments and consumables, and equipped with safe and accessible disposal bins for needles, blades, medical waste and the like.